Moving beyond the enduring dominance of positivism in psychological research: Implications for psychology in Australia

Abstract

Almost since its inception, the dominant narrative of modern psychology has embraced positivism through its insistence that psychological science is objective, generalisable, and value free (or neutral). Consequently, quantitative research and, in particular, experimental designs, are privileged over other forms of enquiry, and other epistemologies, methodologies, and methods remain marginalised within the discipline. We argue that the enduring hegemony of positivism needs to be opposed to enable psychology to genuinely understand the antecedents of, and provide meaningful sustainable solutions for, complex human issues without being constrained by a narrow focus on method. We discuss the ways in which psychology in Australia can move towards embracing a constructionist epistemology that provides the framework for methodological pluralism. We provide a number of suggestions for change across the interrelated areas of accreditation, curriculum, the Australian Psychological Society, and research.

Key words:

• Discipline issues
• epistemology
• ethical issues
• social issues
• teaching of psychology
• theoretical and methodological issues
• theoretical and philosophical psychology

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge and thank Professor Alison Garton, Professor David Fryer, and the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful, useful, and encouraging feedback on our earlier drafts.

Notes

Crotty (1998) distinguishes between the epistemology of objectivism and the theoretical perspective of positivism. He does, however, state that objectivism and positivism are similar and linked by the search for universal laws. Indeed, many authors use the terms synonymously, and many write of the epistemology of positivism.

This manuscript is by no means an exhaustive account of the history of psychology. For a full treatment of the history of the discipline, readers are referred to texts devoted to the examination of the history of psychology (e.g., Leahey, 1992).

Although Comte did not coin the term “positivism”, he was instrumental in its popularisation (Crotty, 1998).

Borrowed from chemistry, a reagent is a constant that produces an invariant reaction (Rosnow, 1981).

Other techniques were utilised such as the double blind experiment, wherein neither the researcher nor the participants are aware of which participants are assigned to which levels of the independent variable (Martin, 2008). The double blind experiment, however, does not overcome all experiment effects (Rosnow, 1981).

Organisational psychology programs lack sufficient “clinical elements” and thus are unable to access the higher funding available to all other speciality psychology programs.

O'Neill (1989) provides a discussion of the differences between unforeseeable and unforseen consequences and their ethical implications.

Although Australian psychology initially took its lead from Britain (Garton, 2006), these developments were considered “scattered and insubstantial” (Cooke, 2000, p. 7).

We note that a proportion of psychology areas of scholarship is delivered within schools combining psychology and social sciences.

It needs to be noted, however, that the APS has long attempted to mitigate, to varying success, the tensions created by the often disparate needs of academics and practitioners (Cooke, 2000). The formation of interests groups was, in part, to provide a structure for discussion and action concerning social issues (Cooke, 2000). While the interest groups continue to focus on applied areas beyond the academy, there are exceptions, including the Teaching, Learning and Psychology Interest Group, which was established in 2007.